Portal:Environment

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Welcome to the Environment Portal
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Introduction

The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams and the works of mound-building termites are thought of as natural. (Full article...)

The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams and the works of mound-building termites are thought of as natural.

People cannot find absolutely natural environments on Earth,naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the Anthropocene have fundamentally effected all natural environments including: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution from plastic and other chemicals in the air and water. More precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in an agricultural field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil, but the structure is quite different. (Full article...)

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The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. Environmentalists advocate the just and sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in (not an enemy of) ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, as well as human rights.

The environmental movement is an international movement, represented by a range of environmental organizations, from enterprises to grassroots and varies from country to country. Due to its large membership, varying and strong beliefs, and occasionally speculative nature, the environmental movement is not always united in its goals. At its broadest, the movement includes private citizens, professionals, religious devotees, politicians, scientists, nonprofit organizations, and individual advocates like former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and Rachel Carson in the 20th century. (Full article...)

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... that "Look at the world" is a 1996 choral harvest anthem with text and music by John Rutter, written for CPRE "on the theme of the environment and our responsibility towards it"?
... that in a 2014 study viriditoxin was able to inhibit prostate cancer cells' growth in a lab environment?
... that critics objected to Dangers of the Mail in the 1930s for government support of lewdness and in the 2000s for creating a hostile work environment?
... that the algal species Trachelomonas cervicula has been observed in environments highly polluted with cadmium, lead, and zinc?
... that the UN Human Rights Committee recognized a correlation between the right to life and protection of the environment in Portillo Cáceres v Paraguay?
... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
... that fictional depictions of Jupiter have portrayed human habitation on the planet and its moons both by altering the environment to suit humans and altering humans to be suited to the environment?
... that ancient permafrost can preserve viable microorganisms, some of which contain antibiotic-resistance genes that may be transferred to modern bacteria?

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The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged between the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth. Burning fossil fuels leads to the addition of extra carbon into the cycle over what naturally occurs and is a major cause of climate change.

Current events

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Monbiot in 2013

George Joshua Richard Monbiot (/ˈmɒnbioʊ/ MON-bee-oh; born 27 January 1963) is a British journalist, author, and environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and has written several books.

Monbiot grew up in Oxfordshire and studied zoology at the University of Oxford. He then began a career in investigative journalism, publishing his first book Poisoned Arrows in 1989 about human rights issues in West Papua. In later years, he has been involved in activism and advocacy related to various issues, such as climate change, British politics and loneliness. In Feral (2013), he discussed and endorsed expansion of rewilding. He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. Monbiot was awarded the Global 500 in 1995 and the Orwell Prize in 2022. (Full article...)

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The Wildlife Trusts headquarters in Newark-on-Trent

The Wildlife Trusts, the trading name of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, is an organisation made up of 46 local Wildlife Trusts in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and Alderney. The Wildlife Trusts, between them, look after more than 2,300 nature reserves, covering around 98,500 hectares (243,000 acres). As of 2020^[update], the Trusts have a combined membership of over 870,000 members.

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is an independent charity, with a membership formed of the 46 individual charitable Trusts. It acts as an umbrella group for the individual Wildlife Trusts, as well as operating a separate Grants Unit which administers a number of funds. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various environment-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion)
Image 2Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 3Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 4Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 5The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 6A conifer forest in the Swiss Alps (National Park). (from Ecoregion)
Image 7A portion of the C-38 canal, finished in 1971, now backfilled to restore the Kissimmee River floodplain to a more natural state (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 8Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science)
Image 9Trichodesmium bloom off the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 10Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 11The Earth's atmosphere (from Environmental science)
Image 12Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 13Structure 65B on the Kissimmee River is destroyed by the Corps of Engineers in 2000 to restore the natural flow of the river. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 14Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States (from Environmental science)
Image 15Storage Silos on the Gladstone waterfront, an industrial area in the water catchment area (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 16Crown-of-thorns starfish and eaten coral off the coast of Cooktown, Queensland (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 17Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 18Proportion of forest area by forest area density class and global ecological zone, 2015, from Food and Agriculture Organization publication The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief (from Ecoregion)
Image 19Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 20An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 21WWF terrestrial ecoregions (from Ecoregion)
Image 22Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 23Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 24
A freshwater lake in Gran Canaria, an island of the Canary Islands. Clear boundaries make lakes convenient to study using an ecosystem approach.
(from Ecosystem)
Image 25Sea temperature and bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 26Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 27Compartments established by C&SF projects that separated the historic Everglades into Water Conservation Areas and the Everglades Agricultural Area. One-fourth of the original Everglades is preserved in Everglades National Park. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 28Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)
Image 29Current water drainage patterns in South Florida in 2005 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 30The Amazon River in Brazil. (from Ecoregion)
Image 31Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 32Planned water recovery and storage implementation using CERP strategies (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 33Climbing ferns overtake cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 34Cattails indicate the presence of phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 35A map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions per the World Wide Fund for Nature. (from Ecoregion)
Image 36Tropical Cyclone Larry over the Great Barrier Reef, 19 March 2006 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 37The High Peaks Wilderness Area in the 6,000,000-acre (2,400,000 ha) Adirondack Park is an example of a diverse ecosystem. (from Ecosystem)
Image 38A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
Image 39The Ötztal Alps, a mountain range in the central Alps of Europe, are part of the Central Eastern Alps, and can both be termed as ecoregions. (from Ecoregion)
Image 40View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 41Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 42A major coral bleaching event took place on this part of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 43Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion)
Image 44The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 45A protest against the Adani Carmichael mine, 2016 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 46Catchments along the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 47Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 48Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 49Acropora with brown band disease, Lizard Island (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 50Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 51Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 52A false color composite of the greater Boston area, created using remote sensing technology, reveals otherwise not visible characteristics about the land cover and the health of the surrounding ecosystems. (from Environmental science)
Image 53Roseate spoonbills, along with other wading birds, have decreased by 90% since the 1930s and 1940s. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 54Natural water drainage patterns prior to development in South Florida, circa 1900 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 55The Shen Neng 1 aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 5 April 2010 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 56This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)

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More did you know - show different entries

...that recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy cost of processing new aluminium?

... that the idea of atmospheric gases trapping the Suns heat to produce the greenhouse effect was put forward by Joseph Fourier in the 1820’s?

... that the global ecological footprint is 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita?

... that climate change scenarios, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) were superseded by Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)?

... that the entire editorial board of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health resigned in protest in November 2017 over disputes involving the new editor-in-chief?